County board adopts budget

The Etowah County Board of Education on Tuesday approved a $77.9 million budget Tuesday that Superintendent Alan Cosby termed a “minimum” budget.

By Andy PowellTimes Staff Writer

The Etowah County Board of Education on Tuesday approved a $77.9 million budget Tuesday that Superintendent Alan Cosby termed a “minimum” budget.The budget for 2010-2011 goes into effect Oct. 1.This year’s budget was $78.6 million, which was later reduced to $76.5 million with proration.“It’s as lean a budget as we could possibly have in Etowah County,” Cosby said, “we’re making use of every possible revenue source, we’re maximizing use of our funds with this budget.”Cosby said he did not think parents, students or teachers would see any cutbacks or reduction in services.“We’ve been operating for the last couple of years since we’ve had the two rounds of proration on staffs that are basically skeleton in nature, as far as personnel goes,” he said. “We’ve (got) a very limited number of locally funded units This budget once again reflects that.”Cosby said the approximately $1.8 million the system will receive in federal stimulus funds will help it to not have to dig deeper into reserve funds. He said at the end of this fiscal year the system will only have about 38 percent, or $1.8 million, of the $4.8 million the state would like it to have in reserve.Those federal funds likely will prevent some cuts that would have to be made if the economy doesn’t continue to improve,” Cosby said. “Basically, it will help us for the future.”He said he and other superintendents are concerned about proration in the budget that goes into effect Oct. 1 and he also is concerned about the 2012 budget if the economy doesn’t improve.With the federal funds, Cosby said, the budget could handle proration of about 3.5 percent.Cosby said the system is operating with about five locally funded teacher units which makes it difficult to expand offerings.“We’re operating at a minimum, that’s what we’re doing,” he said.Cosby said the system’s employment is almost the same as it was last year. Last year it had 1,084.25 employees and this year it has 1,084.52 employees.The system has 589.75 classroom teachers, down from 593.75 a year ago.The board approved the purchase of four 72-passenger school buses from Transportation South for $299,496 and one 48 passenger bus for special education students for $88,995.75.The board also awarded the bid for air conditioning for kitchens in six schools to Coosa Heating and Cooling of Gadsden for $38,996. The work will be done at John Jones, Carlisle, Duck Springs, Southside elementary schools, Glencoe Middle and High School and Hokes Bluff High School.

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